Free Fueling Her Fire by Piper Trace Page A

moment.
    “So you’re a lawyer in Chicago now?” he stood up, taking
both of their empty bowls to the kitchen. When he returned, he was carrying the
opened wine bottle. He poured more in their glasses and placed the bottle
between them. “I always knew you’d do big things.” He looked up at her shyly
through his eyelashes.
    “I do okay, I guess.”
    “I knew you wouldn’t stick around. You had that scholarship
to that big school out of state.” He shook his head. “Man, there were a lot of
guys sorry to see you go.” She almost spit out the sip of wine she was taking.
    “What? What are you talking about? No one liked me!”
    Dylan stared at her, disbelief evident on his face. “Kip.”
He spoke to her like she was a child who was deliberately misunderstanding,
“You could have had any guy in school.” She made a scoffing noise, sure he was
teasing her. He narrowed his eyes at her. “You can’t tell me you didn’t know
that.”
    “That’s so not true! I was, you know,” she looked down,
embarrassed, “plain. The smart one. I wasn’t the kind of girl boys liked.”
    “I liked you.” His voice was soft and held some note of
emotion she couldn’t pinpoint. She looked up at him, maybe to read his eyes,
but he was staring down at his wineglass. She thought of arguing with him, but
he went on, “ You’re the one who didn’t like anyone. You were so…snobby.
You never talked to anyone.”
    Her mouth dropped open. “ Snobby? I was not snobby!
People were hardly falling all over themselves to be my friend, so I
just…didn’t talk to them either. Especially the boys. No one ever asked me out
on a date.”
    He looked up and narrowed his eyes at her, trying to discern
if her surprise was genuine. “Kip, you were pretty and smart and you had a
beautiful smile. You weren’t like a lot of the other girls, all shallow and
full of drama. You were real —you could talk about stuff. And your body,
goddamn.” He shook his head and took a sip of his wine.
    She furrowed her brow at him. “My body ?” she asked,
not bothering to hide her incredulity.
    He threw his hand up. “Kip, c’mon! Your body was amazing.
You had curves. Your ass…and your breasts! You had breasts !” he said
dreamily. “There wasn’t a guy in school who didn’t dream of touching them.”
    He stopped talking and looked away. She knew he was thinking
about when he had touched her breasts back then. So was she. They sat in
silence for a minute. He toyed with his wineglass, seemingly lost in his
thoughts.
    She was blown away. She thought no one had liked her. She
thought she had been the school nerd. Could reality really have been that
different? Her mind starting flicking through her memories…her interactions
with people. Could it really have been the way Dylan said it was? She had been
so sure she was unpopular, unappealing to the guys. Had she just been so
insecure that she’d never allowed the possibility, too afraid she’d be
rejected?
    Until Dylan…
    “So,” she asked hesitantly. “So you liked me?”
    “ Liked you?” Dylan’s eyes were wide. “Liked you? Kip,
what was it you thought we were doing?” His voice had an edge of anger to it.
“I was thrilled to have the chance to spend time with you. And when we were
studying you talked to me—I was able to get to know you.” He looked at
her quizzically. “You didn’t like me .”
    She gasped. She wasn’t sure the conversation could get any
more surreal. “Didn’t like you? Of course I liked you! I wouldn’t have
done…that…otherwise.” She looked down, embarrassed.
    They both sipped at their wine, Kip entangled in her
memories, and the silence between them grew heavy. She wondered how it was
possible that two people could remember the same situation with such obvious
disparity. But why dwell on it now? The past couldn’t be changed.
    “Why stick around here?” she finally asked, purposely
changing the subject. “If you don’t have family here, why do